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I am revising a product catalog for a firm that manufactures and
distributes products for the building construction industry. The
portion of the catalog we are currently working on consists of minimal
text, a simple line drawing showing the product configuration, and
complex tables presenting US and metric values for each construction
variable. The firm has presented a prototype table to several of its
customers for evaluation. We've been on hold several months while
this is going on.
My client has a number of requirements. Among them: (1) he wants the
ability to open the files and tweak the tables or manipulate the data
for specific situations; (2) long-term, he wants to publish the catalog
on CD-ROM.
My client wants the catalog done in FrameMaker because of its table
management capabilities (no argument there). FrameViewer bundled on a
CD-ROM would enable viewing by their customers.
My concern is that my client would be a casual FM user and would be
frustrated with this complex software. I would be actually be doing my
client a disservice by not recommending other software if a better
alternative were available. (Bear in mind - not too long ago he was
still using WordPerfect 5.1 and FrameMaker Release 4 was still in the
box. I'm using FM5.) I've tried doing the tables in WordPerfect 6, but
it doesn't seem to have the table management capability needed
(maybe I don't know the software well enough).
Would any of you know of other software I could recommend for this
application?
You may respond off the list if you wish to techxfr -at- lakefield -dot- net -dot-
Thanks
Howard Rauch
--
Technology Transfer, Inc.
"Linking Creators and Users of Technology"
933 North 18th St, Manitowoc WI 54220-3132
Voice: 920-682-1528 Fax: 920-686-0898
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